Category Archives: Blog

Plan For Listening If You Want To Be Heard

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Descartes opined that when no one is in the woods to hear a tree fall there is no proof that the tree actually fell.  Applied to causing learning, if a teacher is talking/teaching in a classroom and no students are listening, is teaching actually occurring?

Let’s add another question to this point.  A teacher gives oral direction to a class of twenty children.  To what extent does each child hear the same direction?

These two questions are real.  Talking and the expectation of being listened to is an assumption.  Directing and the expectation that others will understand the direction is a second assumption.  These two assumptions are made every day in classrooms and they lead us to the Cartesian conclusion:  if children are not listening and paying attention to what is being said, there is no proof that teaching and direction actually occurred.

The remedy is that we must shelve our assumptions and gather evidence.  To follow Madeline Hunter, we must teach the critical attributes of listening and we must check for understanding of what has been heard.  And, we must practice these critical attributes and checking for understanding until they are fully embedded in our teaching/learning routines.  Then, we must check them intermittently to assure that we do not fall victim to our assumptions once again.

Critical attributes of effective listening begin with the teacher.  Is the teaching and direction constructed in ways that promote attentive listening?  Are they personalized so that children can relate to the words spoken?  If a child does not know that she is expected to listen and that her success as a student is within the teaching/direction, she will not commit her attention.  Is the teaching/directing concise and without the distraction of “bird walks” of irrelevant information?  We all listen in “snippets”.  Effective teaching in five- to ten-minute bursts are consumable for attentive listening.  Directions that include three or four “to do” points are understandable for attentive listening.  Story telling and rambling and anecdotal directing cause a student to tune out and long lists of things to do are confusing.  Teachers who plan to be listened to will be heard.

Checking for understanding is child accountability.  Why would a person take their car in for a repair and not road test the car afterward to assure the repair was actually made?  We need to road test children for what they hear and understand.  Checking is requiring a child or children to demonstrate – to give evidence of what they heard and understood.  Asking a child to paraphrase an instructional snippet verbally or in writing, to connect the instructional snippet to a previous snippet, or to provide the conclusions she has reached after considering the snippet are good checking strategies.  When children know that they will be required to demonstrate their listening and understanding, they become more attentive listeners and learners.  Over time, they become more effective and interactive in their self-accountability for learning and listening.

There are many more techniques and strategies for assuring that teaching/learning and directing/listening occur in classrooms.  To prevent a Cartesian problem, it is essential that a teacher purposefully practices any of these techniques to create the evidence that children are listening and learning.  If this is not done, a teacher might as well hold class in the stillness of the woods where there is no proof that a tree actually fell.

Relationships Created in September Cause Learning

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September in school is all about relationships.  Beginning with the moment that a child is told the names of her teachers-to-be and a teacher reads the roster of names assigned to her for instruction, the most essential educational agenda is “getting to know each other.”  If they don’t get their relationships right in September, the work of teaching and learning over the next eight months will suffer.

Why is this September work important?  Because teaching and learning is a human interaction that, at its core, rests on a child’s belief that “my teacher likes me and wants me to be a successful student” and “my students understand me and want to learn from what I teach them.”  When these two perceptions are firmly in place, daily assignments, curricular projects, constant questioning and answering, and the array of tests and assessments become the natural flow of a school year.  When perceived relationships are negative, schooling is an adversarial conflict.

The perception of being “liked” by a teacher is amorphous; its nature depends entirely on the individual personalities of the student and teacher.  However, there are key features that pervade the many faces of these relationships.  A student must know that her teacher is genuine in knowing her name and in the smiles she sees on her teacher’s face.  The delivery of positive words and actions matter, because they are the consistent measure a child uses to confirm her relationships.  Quickly in the school year, a child who visually sees and emotionally feels a positive connection with her teacher begins to understand that teacher praise of successful learning and constructive criticism for things not learned well enough are given with good and sincere intention.  Frowns and corrections within a positive relationship are more likely to lead to improved learning when the same frowns and corrections in an adversarial relationship likely lead to a shut down of learning efforts.  When a child knows that her teacher really knows her, she will commit to her learning.

Equally amorphous is the concept of care.  When a child perceives that a teacher really cares about her well-being, her safety, and her success in school, the warmth of this “care factor” fuels the child’s ability to persist with learning that is challenging and problems that appear to be insurmountable.  “I care” is expressed with words and body language that teachers use to engage with a child.  Personalized eye contact, physical and appropriate proximity, encouraging language, and, most important, persistence in “teacher-to-me” engagement that instructs, coaches, and acknowledges a child’s efforts and success are staples of a caring relationship.  When these are amply demonstrated, a child will do whatever it takes to succeed.  When these are absent, a child simply shuts down her willingness to participate in school.

Teachers who commit themselves to building the perception of their genuine liking and caring for each child as an individual and unique student can cause all the children assigned to their instruction to learn and grow in their knowledge, skills, and understandings of grade level curriculum.  Beyond the immediacy of the school year, teachers who do these will be remembered well for a lifetime.  Teachers who don’t build “I like you” and “I care about your learning” perceptions need to re-evaluate their professional career pathway, because their students already have written them off.

Readingless Children

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Parents, this is on you!

“What book are you reading?”, I asked a middle-school aged child. He said, “I don’t read.” And, returned his attention to his tablet where he was engaged in virtual gaming with friends at a distance. I persisted. “Summer is almost over. Surely you read one book this summer.” Without looking up, he said, “Nope.”

I wasn’t overly surprised. When I visit people in their homes, one of the first things I look for, after the amenities have been observed, are books. I look for the presence of books on shelves or end tables or coffee tables or stacked beside a chair or in a wall basket in the bathroom or sticking out from under a bed. In homes with children, books are a vanishing breed. Hardcover or softcover, they are hard to find.

“Ah”, I said, seeing no books laying around. “How many books do you have downloaded on your tablet?” He is, after all, a post-millennial.

“None”, he said. “I just have games and social media sites.” He did not miss a thing on his screen as his friend’s avatars advanced against his fortification.

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them,” Mark Twain said. I believe this to be true.

Call me a bibliophile and I won’t argue. I send my grandchildren books for Christmas and birthdays. They are never for want of toys or tee shirts or jeans with holes or running shoes. Little did I know that the books I presented had legs. They walked off to distant places never to be seen again. Now, I am advised not send books. “They won’t read them,” I am told by their parents.

I repeat myself. Parents, this is on you. Parents born of Generation X and Gen X or iGen, tell me “I am so busy with work and family and other things that I need to pick my fights. Getting my kids to read is not a fight I need in my life.” Truth be told, reading is not about a parent’s life, it is all about a child’s life and their life to come.

Still, I persisted with my young gamer. As I watched the activity on his tablet screen from over his shoulder, I could not help myself. “Nice flanking movement. That’s the kind of thing Stonewall Jackson would have done in the Civil War or George Patton would have done in World War Two.”

“Unh huh,” he said moving to counter the flanking.

“What if I give you an iBook gift card? Would you be interested in reading about Stonewall Jackson or General George Patton on your tablet?”

“Nope. I don’t read.”

That got me. I could not help what I said next. “Your tablet is a piece of junk, you know. I read in PC Magazine that the graphics are too slow to make the action life-like. Too bad for you, I guess.”

He paused. “I read that, but they were wrong. Wired said that PC Mag used information from last year’s model to talk about this year’s model that is so much improved. I have this year’s model.”

“So, you do read,” I said. “Do you ever talk with your parents about what you read?”

“No. They aren’t interested in what interests me. And, they never talk to me about what they read.”

And, there it is, Mr. Twain. I amend your timeless quotation.

“The parent who does not encourage a child to read is raising a child who has no advantage over a child who cannot read.”

The Teacher I Wish For You

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(This is a letter to our grandchildren. Each of our grandchildren will be in a public school this fall ranging from third grade to tenth grade. Our grandchildren know their Gramps is “old school.” Old as in living in his eighth decade and school as in being actively and constantly engaged in public education since 1970. And, they know that at the end of every school day, he will ask “Tell me what you learned today.”)

I wish for you a teacher who teaches you. Seems like a “No, duh!”, but it isn’t. The list of things a teacher is required to be in 2018 is long and teaching children is just one that can be lost in the many. I wish for you a teacher who expands your knowledge and challenges the ways you think about what you think you know. I wish for you a teacher who teaches you new skill sets and helps you to hone these skills so you will do things thereafter that you could not do before. I wish for you a teacher who builds your concept of personal challenges so that problems become opportunities and solutions become keys to opening possibilities and you begin to look for your next challenge with a smile. I wish for you a teacher who causes you to learn and to enjoy your learning.

Every teacher has a job description. Seldom do the descriptors say “Do this first – as in teach.” All descriptors are to be successfully enacted. That’s what a teacher is hired to do. Some teacher responsibilities are instructional: develop and submit lesson plans, assess learning, meet individual student learning needs. Teach class. Some responsibilities are managerial: keep an orderly classroom, maintain classroom supplies, submit required reports.   Some are supervisory: assure student safety in the hallways and on the playgrounds. All are important to the teacher’s supervisor. However, only one is essential for Gramps: cause all children to learn the grade level or course curriculum. The rest of a teacher’s responsibilities will take care of themselves when children are actively learning from a proactive teacher.

Your learning is between you and your teacher. I hope your teacher will give you a smile frequently. Smiles are a good thing and help to connect children and teachers. But, I also hope she will give you a frown or a shake of the head when your learning or learning behavior is not on target. When teachers take causing children to learn as their personal duty they are invested in how well each child does every day. A smile rewards and a frown corrects. Your teacher should focus you on achieving the day’s lesson every day.  Smiles!  Teachers cause learning.

I hope your teacher talks with you every day. Teacher talk helps you to know how close you are to getting things right. Many times each day you will not be getting things right. If the day’s lesson is designed properly, the work should be challenging and you will make mistakes. Teacher talk helps you iron out the mistakes. Talking with your teacher also is your teacher listening to you talk about your learning. It is essential that you talk to your teacher. In listening to you talk, your teacher will know more about how you are learning and cause you to learn more.

I hope your teacher laughs a lot. Learning at school may seem like work to you and sometimes hard work, but learning also is fun. A teacher’s joy derives from student learning. The more students learn, even when learning is difficult, the more teachers should laugh. When your classmates are really working at their learning, someone will say something that is so perfectly correct that a teacher cannot help but laugh. Kids also say strange things, things that just don’t make sense at the moment and this also causes everyone to laugh. There is a difference between laughing with children and laughing at children; good teachers laugh with you. Imagine a classroom without teacher laughter and ask yourself if anyone, the teacher especially, is having fun. That’s not a classroom for you, Kiddo.

I hope for you a teacher who isn’t afraid. “Teachers shouldn’t be afraid,” you say. But, they are. Most are fearful of what children say to their parents at supper. You know how this goes. Mom asks, “What did you do at school today?” And, you say, “You should have seen (or heard) Mrs. Smith. She …”  Teachers worry about what others think about their teaching and what parents are telling the principal. I hope your teacher is fearless and tries ways of teaching that push your limits. Teaching must always be child-safe, but it may sometimes cause you to say “Wow! That was crazy!” It is not strange that those “Wow!” things in class stick with you and begin to make sense later in time. I hope your teacher pushes all the good buttons that make you remember what happens in class every day.

Lastly, I hope your teacher will say more at the end of the school year than “Your grandchild was a good kid.” Of course, you are a good kid. Instead, I want your teacher to talk about how much you learned and how well you learned. I want her to say that you were serious about your learning and that you asked serious questions and lots of questions and sometimes questions that pushed her teaching. She should say that you were a respectful and earnest learner. And, in her own thinking, I want her to consider that you made her a better teacher.

These aren’t too much to hope for, my grandchildren. No, they are what every grandfather should expect.